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Wednesday night (16th November),
London's Alexandra Palace saw the 2005 UK Music Hall Of Fame, which
included Pink Floyd as one of the inductees. We are pleased to bring
you full details of the event, along with pictures from the induction
and details of an interview conducted backstage with David Gilmour and
Nick Mason.

The event had a host of
performers inducted - alongside Pink Floyd were Jimi Hendrix, Joy
Division/New Order, Black Sabbath, Bob Dylan, The Who, The Eurythmics,
The Kinks, Aretha Franklin, and John Peel.

A tribute to Hendrix saw Mitch
Mitchell on drums (The Experience), Billy Cox on bass (Band of Gypsies)
and Slash on guitar.

Stevie Winwood joined the lineup as Hendrix’
favourite musician, singing and playing keyboards on Hey Joe and Stone
Free. Stevie’s voice was still in great shape and Mitch played his
heart out; he hadn't lost one bit of that old magic. A mind-blowing
performance!

New Order performed a magnificent
rendition of the Joy Division classic Love Will Tear Us Apart, as a
tribute to the late Ian Curtis, and The Pretenders covered two Kinks
songs.

Next up saw Ozzy Osbourne
and the new Black Sabbath followed by the original Black Sabbath line
up of Ozzy, Tony, Geezer and Bill, who had specially reformed for the
event. They played Paranoid.

And Ozzy dropped his trousers, "mooning"
the front rows of the audience.

Finally, Damon Albarn introduced
John Peel, and it was rather touching when John’s wife Sheila and his
brother stepped up to accept the award.

The final performance came from
The Datsuns/The Buzzcocks and friends performing Ever Fallen in Love as
a tribute to John Peel (see below).

Turning to the Floyd part, the
band received a three minute introduction from Pete Townshend. A witty
and humble speech, it honoured all five past and present members of the
band. He explained that he first saw them in 1966, and on 20th January
1967, actually skipped a Who concert to take Eric Clapton to a Floyd
show!

This was followed by a five
minute segment of various artists, praising Pink Floyd and explaining
why they deserve their place. Here's the highlights of these remarks:

Rick Wakeman (Yes): "When the first
list was being drawn up in the rock 'n' roll book of Genesis, it would
have been: In the beginning, God created Pink Floyd."

Billy
Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins): "The things that they've touched were such
high watermarks, that no one's really even come close since."

Bob Ezrin: "More than being a band, Pink Floyd was a kind of feeling, a vibe, and an ethos."

Alex
Paterson (The Orb): "They were experimenting with lights and sound, 30
years before what's happening now. Their visual show was a forerunner
to what now a huge acid house party would be."

Phil Manzanera
(Roxy Music): "You know you're going to get a great show, and it's
going to be a great visual spectacular as well as the music, so it's
like sound and vision."

Alex Paterson: "They didn't use their
looks to sell records, they didn't use a fashion to sell records, they
used music to sell records."

Billy Corgan: "Dark Side Of The
Moon is sorta like the Mona Lisa. It's a masterpiece of production. The
lyrics are fantastic, the playing is incredible."

Bob Geldof:
"The musical sense at the centre of this record [DSOTM] is so
thrilling, and so new. It is a complete masterpiece. Put it on now,
it'll stand up."

Richard Curtis (Live 8 organiser): "Pink Floyd were so magisterial and perfect, like they'd just landed in a time capsule."

Bob Geldof: "The sidestage was rammed with people, to be there at that moment, with this great group rejoined."

Richard
Curtis: "Behind this really massive, solid perfection, was this
wonderful emotional tale of these men who hadn't played together for so
long."

Bob Geldof: "Boy were they good, eh?"

Billy Corgan: "For me personally Pink Floyd is the band that I reach for when I've completely lost hope in music."

Rick
Wakeman: "They will always continue to be an influence, with both the
music that they're making now, and the music they made in the early
days."

Bob Ezrin: "I think the secret to their longevity is
hummable, memorable melodies played by great musicians in a refined and
intelligent way."

Rick Wakeman: "They've played an astonishing part in the history of rock 'n' roll."

Taylor Hawkins (Foo Fighters): "There'll never be another Pink Floyd."

The two band members in the
audience, David Gilmour and Nick Mason, were then invited to the stage,
by Townshend, watched by friends and family. Amongst the musicians
present was Snowy White.
Pete
Townshend passed the award to David, and gave him a big hug. Nick
settled for a polite handshake! Roger Waters hovered above them on a
large video screen, taking part in a live satellite link from Rome,
where he was undertaking final dress rehearsals for the world premiere
performance of Ca Ira. And so to the band's acceptance speech...
Gilmour: "Well, there's only two of us tonight. Rick's erm... I think
he's in hospital. He's just had an eye operation, poor sausage! And,
Roger's opening his opera tomorrow night I think in Rome. I think
he's... oh, there he is..." [turns to see Roger on video screen]

Mason: "Scary..."

Gilmour: "...To which we wish him
the best of luck. [applause] And... to all the passengers on this
fabulous ride we've been on - including Syd, Roger, Michael [Kamen],
Steve O'Rourke, Tony Howard [Pink Floyd's agent] and all those other
people who have slipped off our tour bus at one point or another...
cheers for them too."

Mason: "Are we going to have a word from Roger?"

Waters: "You can have one, or
even two, or three or four! I confess I never felt like a passenger
but, not withstanding that, I am sorry I can't be here, er... there
tonight. Erm.. all those eulogies were rather unnerving but I have to
say very touching and the response that we've had over the years from
our public is very moving, and not least when we were all together that
day in July this year... which was fantastic for us. And to revisit it
then and see those scenes from it, reminded me of how great that was,
to be together again.

"Rick actually hasn't had an eye
operation... he and I have eloped to Rome and we are living happily in
a small apartment off the Via Venuti! Be that as it may, I thank you
very much for this. It means a lot to me, and thank you very much
everybody."

Mason:
"And thank you from me as well. It's, er... can I have a go with [the
award, David]? Yeah, it is something to make up for nearly forty years
of having to listening to bad drummer jokes. [Roger laughs in
background] I think. Although there is just one that I actually heard
today that I thought, yeah actually that sort of sums it up really.
It's a small boy who says to his mother, "When I grow up, I am going to
be a drummer". His mother laughs and looks at him pityingly and says,
"You can't do both!"
Our friends over at A Fleeting Glimpse have the above comments (but not the tributes made to them) available as an AVI video file (14MB) for download through this link.

After their appearance on stage,
David and Nick took time to visit BBC Radio 2's van backstage at the
event. Interviewed by Mark Radcliffe and Mark Ellen, it was an
interesting, relaxed chat with the pair.

Starting with their reminiscences
of the venue, Nick recalls the "24 Hour Technicolor Dream" (sic),
whereas David, who came into the band at a later stage, mentioned the
rehearsals for the Animals tour in late 1976, where the Alexandra
Palace was their base.

Nick spoke of why the UK needs a
Hall Of Fame: "Well, the Americans have got one, and we should
certainly have anything that they have!"

Mark Radcliffe asked if they'd
been tempted to perform for the evening's event, especially after the
affection shown to them at Live 8; David replied that "we had a great
time [at Live 8] and it was a fantastic evening, but I don't think we
were tempted to put it together for this. It was a lot of work!" He
didn't rule out another one-off, for a good cause, but said "I don't
think we could actually do it on a more long-term, or more ongoing,
basis. We've all moved on..."

Asked if, when walking on the
Live 8 stage, did the differences between them fill his head, or
evaporate, David replies: "They didn't fill my head on that day - we'd
just done three days of rehearsing, where we were a lot more conscious
of our differences, I think."

Finally, David is asked about
future releases. He said: "The next thing coming from Pink Floyd Land
is Pulse (on DVD)", followed by his solo album which he said would be
out in March 2006.

Nick plugged Inside Out, and
talked of the translations, which he said might make it more palatable
to the other members, as in Bulgarian it is completely incomprehensible!

As part of the ceremony, the
single coming out tomorrow (Monday) - Ever Fallen In Love - was
performed by the main protagonists on the recording, live. One of these
is David Gilmour, but he didn't take part in the live rendition. The
single, released to raise funds for Amnesty International, is available
to order through these special links: UK/Elsewhere, US/International, Canada, France, or Germany.

The 2005 UK Music Hall of Fame
Induction Ceremony was broadcast on the UK's Channel 4 TV channel, as a
two-hour and fifty minute special on the 17th November, and has
subsequently been repeated on digital channel More4. The BBC Radio 2
broadcast, which has highlights of the show, and the interview with
David and Nick, is available through www.BBC.co.uk's "Radio Player" where it will stream the show on demand.

Our thanks to Gem, Sue Nightingale, and Glenn Povey for their help with this report.